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+--- Thread: DOMESTIC OR IMPORT (/thread-17033.html)
- ROCK-A-BO - 04-23-2003
IS THERE A REAL DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY? CALIFORNIA WINES ARE EASILY ACCESSABLE SO OF COURSE THOSE ARE THE FIRST ONES I TRIED. AM I MISSING OUT ON THE WORLD OF IMPORTS IF I JUST STICK TO THE DOMESTICS I'VE LEARED TO LIKE? BEING NEW TO WINE I HAVE YET TO FIND ONE I REALY LOVE.
- Thomas - 04-23-2003
Quality is an individual wine matter, not a blanket concept, and so you can't make a blanket statement about which wine (import or domestic) is better or worse in quality.
As for accessibility: perhaps the California wines you have tried are accessible but again, you can't generalize about wine that way.
The best thing to do is to attend wine tastings, take notes and decide for yourself which wines you prefer. Over time, your tastes will shift (and you might not even notice) away from the wines you liked in the beginning to different kinds of wines. This happens almost invariably as your palate gets used to or adjusts to various tastes.
- stevebody - 04-29-2003
I refer all the time on this forum to the "journey of wine". To me, learning about wine was exactly like that: a wonderful, exotic trip with hundreds of little, out-of-the-way sidetrips along the path. People you interact with will take you onto some of those sidepaths. Certainly, hearing from Foodie and me, you'll get two entirely different courses, if you ever ask. But what Foodie says is right on the money: you can't generalize. People try to do that all the time, when they buy wine from me. They'll say, "Well, I heard that American wines are more fruity than European wines." Then I have to gently point out that the emphasis on any aspect of the wine can be different from winery to winery and that the country has little to do with it. Case in point: Two of California's biggest and most successful wineries, Beaulieu and Beringer, couldn't be more different in house style. Beaulieu embraces a more French style, especially in their Cabs, which leans toward a more restrained, less fruit-forward flavor curve, while Beringer makes 'em oaky, smoky, and warm/fuzzy.
If you like the softer, less restrained style, you have, literally, a whole world of things that will light you up. I have had a long and rich love affair with Spanish wines and a newer, more intense one with Italians. For sheer fruit, warmth, and accessibility, I'll always lead my customers to those two countries.
Wine tastings are so valuable, it can't be overstated. You get to try a lot of different wines, for FREE, and buy what you already know you like. Better yet, make friends with someone who works at a wine shop and see if they'll invite you to some trade tastings, the tastings distributors do for wine salespeople. I've taken a lot of friends to these and they always have a great time, AND help me make better choices about what to buy.
Most of all, stay OPEN to everything. Never just accept what anyone says about any class of wines being bad, having common characteristics, or being made a certain way. Try them for yourself and you'll enjoy the journey more.
- peterson - 05-05-2003
Imports are fine, but with the economy I have been tring to stay close to home with my purchases. I work in Santa Rosa CA and am seeing the pinch in the local economy. As I said to LoriA about her picks for a wine for her wedding, Sorry for waving the flag but long live the USA.
- ROCK-A-BO - 05-05-2003
Stevebody: Thanks for the insight. I'll have to give serious thought to wine tastings. My only fear is getting sloppy drunk on wines I've never tasted and being entirely to honest about what I think.
Peterson: I'm with you. God bless the USA!
- Botafogo - 05-05-2003
Pete, you probably support more Americans (importers, longshoremen, truckers, warehousers, customs and regulatory sorts) when you buy a bottle of imported wine than a bottle of california wine. Economics is more than skin deep...
- stevebody - 05-06-2003
Rocky,
EEK!! SPIT, SPIT, SPIT!!
Wine tasting is one opf the only social situations in the world at which it is not only acceptable to spit but expected. Tables at wine tastings will almost always have a big silver bucket (or a flower vase or a terra cotta canister or, on one memorable occasion I attended, a coffee can) in which you are expected to spit the mouthful of wine and dump the unused portion of what's poured into your glass. I've been to tastings at which there were upwards of 100 wines to sample. If you drank even a half ounce of all of them, they'd be slapping the paddles on you down at your local ER before the evening was out. What tiny amount of wine remains in your mouth will be plenty to experience the finish. In our house tastings of sampels at Esquin, we almost always sample at least 25 bottles, two nights a week. Learn to spit.
As to the thing about imports, yeah, count me in: God Bless America. That said, Bota is right - there's a hell of a lot more good ol' American green flying around in the selling of a bottle of imported wine than in a bottle of domestic. Jeez, drink both, okay? Your goal, at this point, is to experience wine, and "wine" is a whole lot of different things. I get these customers all the time who say, "Oh, I only drink Oregon wines" or "I heard that wines from Washington are too Do yourself a favor and sampel as many wines as you can from as many countries and regions as possible and decide for yourself what you like. I didn't drink Italian wines for years because I started by experimenting with Chiantis and didn't like a good number of them. I've since come to LOVE Italian wines and to find that they're as different, region to region and vineyard to vineyard, as any wines in the world. Three of the five best wines I've ever tasted are Italian and I was ready to just write off the entire country because of a few mediocre Chiantis.
Remember who's at this end of the pipeline: Americans. ANY wine you buy supports our economy.